


I'll Be Seeing You

by JaineyBaby, timetospy



Series: la Vie en Rose [5]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, Memory Alteration, Missed Connections, Pining, Tanner is a good dad, Where's Q
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-05 20:52:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6722932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaineyBaby/pseuds/JaineyBaby, https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetospy/pseuds/timetospy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drink. He needed a drink. Maybe it would shake something loose from the cobwebs that were his unreliable memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Old, Familiar Places

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the La Vie en Rose series, which reads best in order. Start [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5546726) for the full experience.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James is haunted, and the ghosts will not quiet.

_ February 2016 _

 

Airports were strange places in the wee hours of the morning. The cavernous spaces half-empty, a smattering of travellers talking together in hushed voices, others attempting to rest as best they could in the molded plastic seats, jackets and bags tucked under heads as makeshift pillows.

James stalked through Terminal 3, the corridor stretching out before him in sea green and waxed floors that seemed inexplicably longer since the last time he had made this trip to baggage reclaim. He bypassed the reclaim carousel, his only bag slung across his chest, and emerged onto the pavement. The neon violet glow of the awning made his eyes ache, a complement to the throbbing in his temple and across the back of his head. The air smelled of winter, but the breeze on his face promised warmth when the sun rose. He stepped to the kerb and hailed a cab.

“Where ya headed?” the cabbie asked as James slid into the back.

“Vau -” Wait. No. James cleared his throat and tried again, pushing the name of his neighborhood out through the sudden tightness in his throat. “Notting Hill.” Why on earth would he be headed to Vauxhall? There was nothing left there but a crater and a couple of bricks.

“Sure thing.” No cabbie would argue with a fare like that.

The cab pulled away.

It was a gradual process, the trees that lined the road slowly being replaced by pavement and buildings.  He was home, if he could call it that. London, to use its proper name.

The cab pulled up to the corner; James paid and unfolded himself onto the pavement. It was familiar but disappointing; the rows of flats all identically ‘quaint’ in white stone with wrought iron railings around bow windows looking onto streets lined with parked cars. The odd dog bark cut through the low rumble of the city surrounding him.

Home. The word was hollow and disintegrated as it formed.

He hitched the strap of his duffel onto his shoulder and walked the few dozen meters to his front door. The lock was sticky with cold and damp, and it took him a moment to shake it loose before he could get it to turn properly. He opened the door to stale air and blue-white light filtering in through the bow window from the streetlights below. He sighed and chucked his duffel onto the sofa, then clicked on the lamp next to it. 

It was as he’d left it nearly six weeks ago: boxes stacked next to the sofa and telly, art prints in frames leaning against bare walls. A carpet rolled up and standing next to the cold black maw of the fireplace. 

He and Madeleine had lit a fire there, once, before he’d rolled up the carpet. Just a small one, to go with the port and chocolate-covered strawberries from that Belgian chocolatier in Mayfair. He had laughed when he held the fruit to her lips. 

She hadn't. She’d taken the berry from his fingers with a smile dancing across her lips that was more condescension than amusement.

Q would have laughed.

He had no idea why he thought so - the Q he conjured in his mind had inscrutable eyes. But the more he turned it over, the more certain he became that yes, Q would have laughed with him and then bit into the offered fruit.

But was that a memory, or wishful thinking?

It was this fine line between memory and fantasy that plagued him. He was certain that they’d been… something, but the conviction had become amorphous, slipping through his fingers even as he tried to pin it down.

A drink. He needed a drink. Maybe it would shake something loose from the cobwebs that were his unreliable memory. There had to be something left in this flat besides dust and cold floors. He turned around and pulled open the refrigerator. Empty, as expected. He moved on, banging cabinet doors open and shut, rattling dishes until they almost fell off shelves, but the cupboard was bare. He’d almost given up, until he shoved aside a stack of bowls in the far corner of the bottom cabinet beside the sink. There sat a half-empty bottle of tequila. He hated tequila, but any port in a storm.

He settled into the sofa, taking a long pull off the bottle and swallowing with a grimace. Bad tequila at that, what was the world coming to? The empty wall above the fireplace seemed to mock him. He’d been meaning to hang that bloody horse up there since he’d brought the damn thing out of storage. He set the bottle down on the table and picked up the print from where it sat beside the fireplace. He scrutinized the wall. 

There was a small brass hook just where one should be if the painting were hanging there. He set the frame back down and scoured the other walls of his sitting room, finding tiny brass hooks that seemed to correspond to where he would have hung other pieces. The landscape above the sofa, the portrait in the short hall between the kitchen and the door to the loo. There were hooks tapped into the plasterboard for each and every print he had. When had he taken down the art? And why?

_ ‘Have you just moved in?’ _ Moneypenny’s question rang in his ears. He scowled at the leather chair next to the fireplace and the box on its seat. 

Goddamn Franz and his bloody compound in the god-forsaken desert and his  _ fucking chair _ . James swiped at the box, sending it to the floor. There was a grotesque  _ crunch  _ of breaking glass when it hit. James dumped the box and papers and books slithered out and spread across the floor.  The last item to fall was a black frame. It landed facedown on top of a small, peach-colored, cloth-bound book. He lifted the frame gingerly, hoping the glass wouldn’t crumble onto the floor. 

He flipped it over, dread creeping, inexplicably, up his spine to settle between his shoulders. It was a photo. A photo of Q.

Q in an olive dress shirt with some kind of outrageous print on it. And he was  _ smiling.  _

The smile was tight-lipped and ironic, but the eyes - 

_ Exasperated sigh, eyes searching for deliverance in the ceiling. _

_ “This is ridiculous.” _

_ “Humor me.” _

The frame slipped out of fingers suddenly gone numb and the glass exploded as it landed.

There was no mistaking the mischievous spark in those eyes, the  _ fondness _ . He bent and retrieved the photo from where it lay on the stack of books, shaking off the remainder of the shattered glass. 

His fingers traced the thin pink line of his mouth, ghosted over pale cheeks, outlined eyes the color of the sea before a storm. 

_ Why can't I remember you?  _

The memory was so close, as though the merest wind would knock the wall down that kept him from understanding. 

_ What if he doesn't want you now? _ The voice in his head was unwelcome, a harsh reminder of all the things he did remember: nights spent lying next to Madeleine, the peculiar wrongness of Q’s expression as he pulled the keys to the DB5 from his hand.   _ Do you really think he’ll forgive you?  _ Her voice was always the first one to tear into him, tear him down, even now from beyond the grave.

His chest tightened and his heart gave a painful sideways lurch. Was he chasing down the ghost of something he’d already destroyed? It wouldn’t be the first time. But this - this felt like more than merely chasing down a memory.

_ Q could send you away without a word. He could turn his back and walk away. You probably deserve it. _

And she was right. Oh, she was right, but as he stared into those storm-green eyes, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, just this once, he would get a second chance.

He traced the face again, willing it to speak, to tell him that there was something in his life that hadn’t been reduced to rubble. Had he ruined the only kind of connection he was capable of by running off into the night with a woman he barely knew? Or was Madeleine where he was supposed to be, and he’d ruined that too, by leaving without a word; only a note to explain.

No, not explain. How could he explain the missing pieces, the strange  _ not there _ in the space beside him? And even if he were to explain, what then? Would he become some kind of project? A little broken toy for her to take apart and put back together as it pleased her? No. He’d rather be alone.

The photograph remained silent. He tossed it onto the coffee table with a flick of the wrist, and it slid across until it came to rest against the paws of the bulldog, its one good eye glaring at him in condemnation. He flopped back into the sofa.

“Don't you start, too.”

He took another long pull from the bottle, scowled again, and set it down. Maybe a shower. 

The shower didn’t help. 

He slipped between sheets stale from disuse and sank into unconsciousness, the ghost of an arm pressed against his chest.


	2. This Heart of Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memory is a messy thing.  
> So are apologies.

James woke to a bed that wasn’t supposed to be empty. He’d pulled the spare pillow toward him in the night, pressed it against his chest and curled around it, his face buried in the white cotton pillowcase. Too cold under his cheek, too soft in his arms. He tightened his grip on it anyway, squeezing his eyes shut against the sun that had decided to shine directly on his face. No good. He was well and truly awake, now. He rolled onto his back, the pillow still held against his stomach, and stared at the ceiling. There should be a dip in the bed beside him, shared warmth beneath the duvet, chilled toes wriggling against his calves. He could trace the outline of the back, soft skin stretched over knobby vertebrae. It was so real, and he thought for a crazy moment that if he simply turned his head he could run his finger down that spine from where dark, sleep-mussed hair lay at the nape all the way down to the cleft in that plush arse. He could hear the long, yawning breath as he (Or was this from longer ago - was this a memory he’d tried to bury in blood, resurrected?) turned, skin washed gold in the sun.

He groaned, threw the pillow against the headboard, and scrubbed his face with his hands, chasing the last vestiges of dreams from his brain. Reality came crashing down around his ears, chasing the fantasy back into the cobwebby corners of his mind.

The reality was this: his head felt like pulp and he had to take a piss.

Cold showers were not the most effective cure for a hangover, but tequila at ten in the morning was worse than tequila at two, and the medicine cabinet was as empty as the refrigerator, so he made do. He shaved, put a bit of wax in his hair even though it was nearly too long, and shrugged into a midnight blue dress shirt. Jeans would have to do.

He snagged a coffee and danish from the shop down the street, then hailed a cab. He had an errand to run before he showed up at Q-branch.

 

The private garage in Finchley wasn’t anything particularly posh, but the security was better than average and that was really all that mattered. Well, that and they had individual parking cubicles. Wouldn’t do to have the Aston getting a dent. He slipped behind the wheel and turned the key. The engine came to life and James felt a twinge of pride at being master of such a machine.

He put the car in gear and slid out of the garage, waving to the attendant as he gunned her into traffic and took off, weaving between cars on his way across town.

Traffic was hell. To be fair, London traffic was generally hell, but James had forgotten, between odd hours and time away, how terrifically snarled it could become. He took side streets, back alleys, speeding down one-lane drives if only to keep from standing still.

James saw the CNS building rising up from the surrounding landscape as he inched his way toward Vauxhall bridge. He wasn’t stopping there - Q wouldn’t be there. He’d be in Q-branch, typing away on his laptop, a mug of tea steaming beside his keyboard, surrounded by junior agents, or maybe up to his elbows in one of his prototypes. He’d like to see that, Q all pink from exertion and- 

_ Slim hips and pert arse on display against silver paint - white cotton vest - “Double-Oh-Seven” sounds like music. _

A horn blared and James swerved, narrowly avoiding both a lamppost and oncoming car. He tightened his hands around the steering wheel and rolled his palms over the leather to ground himself to the car. Thank christ he hadn’t been on the bridge proper, he might’ve ended up in the Thames for good.

He flew along the bridge, blowing past the repair crew busy reconstructing the barrier that had been damaged months ago by a helicopter crash.  He turned behind the crater that used to be SIS, now surrounded by construction fencing, and pulled into the car park behind the petrol station down the street. It occurred to him that he’d never actually done this bit before, at least, not that he could remember. 

The car park butted up against an elderly building that, at some point in its distant past, must have been a livery. In the far corner, the remnants of a porte cochere outlined a sizeable doorway that had been bricked up, and it was in front of this that James parked the Aston. He left it idle and hopped out.

A breaker box hung on the wall next to an ionic limestone plinth. Based on the rust, it might have been installed in the ‘50’s. James pressed his thumb against the small black square next to the hasp and it popped open. The biometrics hadn’t been updated. A tiny green tendril of something that wasn’t quite hope, but wasn’t anything else either, sprouted in his chest. 

Inside the breaker box were dozens of switches, decades newer than the box itself. He flipped the tenth one down on the left, and waited. There was a muffled clunk of machinery and the hiss of hydraulics, and the brick in front of the Aston parted down the middle to reveal Q-branch’s car lift. 

James drove the car onto the lift, stopped the engine, then climbed out again to press the button. The lift descended with a hiss and a shudder into the depths. He stood next to the Aston, hands in his pockets, suppressing the buzz of nerves. He was returning the car, that was surely worth something, but he couldn’t quite banish the notion that it was too little, too late.

He didn’t have to worry about it.

Q-branch was all shadows and dust as the doors to the car lift parted. In the center of the cavernous space was a pile of detritus that was at least two meters across and nearly as tall. The rest of it was empty. Except for what looked like a boat under layers of plastic sheeting.

Why was Q-branch empty?

And where was Q?

James jammed the ‘up’ button on the lift, the muscle in his jaw tight, eyebrows knit. What in bloody fuck had happened? Mallory wouldn’t let them shut down Q-branch, for god’s sake. Would he?

The twitch in his jaw spread to his eye and he jabbed the lift button with his thumb several more times with enough force that the plastic covering cracked. Whatever had happened to Q-branch, James was going to get to the bottom of it. He had to. It was the only way to find Q. And the only other place to look was that ugly-arse building across the river.

James pulled out of the lift, shut the concealed door, and peeled out of the car park with the devil licking at his heels. He didn’t need to drive across the bridge. He didn’t need to pull up in front of the CNS building with a screech of tires. But damn it felt good to do it anyway.

He swung the Aston’s door closed just as Tanner bustled out of the building, nearly running.

“Bond,” he said, halting in front of James. “Good to see you. Er, what are you doing here?”

“Tanner.” James brushed past him.

“Look, um - you can’t actually -” Tanner put a hand on James’ arm to stop him. James scowled but halted and turned to face the Chief of Staff. 

“What.” It wasn’t a question. There wasn’t anything nearly as civil as a question in the word that poked out like a jagged piece of glass between his lips. Something hot and just as jagged was bubbling up in the pit of his stomach. Q Branch was empty when it wasn’t supposed to be.

“You can’t enter the building,” Tanner explained, doing his best to inject all the authority of his position into the order.

“Why not?” James tried for civility this time. By the affronted face Tanner was making, it hadn’t worked.

“You don’t technically work here anymore. Non-personnel can’t go inside. I thought he would have told you.” Tanner said slowly. It seemed he gave out on civility as well.

“Nobody’s told me a damn thing,” James growled. “I didn’t even know they’d shut down Q-branch.” 

Tanner blinked, his eyes widening slightly. Nothing about this conversation was making sense and that roiling sensation in James’ stomach spread like white hot plasma to his temples. 

“I’ve come to return my equipment.” Among other things, but Tanner certainly didn’t need to know about that.

To his credit, Tanner did not laugh, although he did clear his throat thoroughly.  “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that when he comes back from holiday. In the meantime, you can hand over the keys, I’ll be sure he gets them.”

“Holiday?” Q wasn’t here, either? Hadn’t he just been on holiday? No. That was James. It was almost like Q was doing this disappearing act on purpose. Christ, that man was impossible.

“Um. Yes. Left the day before yesterday.”

Bloody fucking typical. Try to give a man back a car for once and he turns up AWOL. He barely suppressed a growl of annoyance as he assessed Tanner and concluded that the man knew little more than what he’d already told him. There were two other people who might be able to explain what the hell was going on, but only one he trusted to any appreciable degree.

“Where’s Moneypenny?” 

“In her office, but-”

James stopped him with a glare. He wasn’t going anywhere until he got some bloody answers.

“I’ll get you a guest pass,” Tanner said, shoulders falling in defeat.

“Thank you,” James spared Tanner a smile that was little more than a vague lifting of his lips and followed the Chief of Staff into the building. Well, he’d been the Chief of Staff when James had left, at any rate. God knew what they called him now. ‘Human Resources’ something, James thought sourly. 

James went through the process of obtaining a guest pass with as much patience as he could muster under the circumstances, only growling twice (which he did more to get a rise out of Tanner than anything else). Once it was pressed and clipped to his shirt pocket, he followed Tanner through security and up the curving staircase to the top floor.

Tanner took a deep breath, then knocked on the door.

“Yes?”

James pulled a smirk onto his lips and slid past Tanner.

“That’s really not a good -”

The mask was firmly in place before he even stepped into the room. He made his face the picture of perfect ease, a face he thought would look like it belonged here, standing in the center of this office before Moneypenny even had the chance to look up from her computer. He tacked it firmly over the corners of his mouth and hid his eyes behind it. No one here would ever even guess how close he was to drowning.

Moneypenny’s eyes lifted from her computer screen and she grinned. After all these years, he was only slightly surprised  that he could still deceive her like this. 

“I guess I can open that bottle of Cabernet for myself then.”

“What?” He felt the mask falter slightly, a crease forming between his eyebrows.

Moneypenny’s eyes flicked to Tanner, who hovered in the doorway.

“Do you want your ten quid now?”

Tanner shook his head, his eyes darting between James and Moneypenny with what James could only read as a fair amount of alarm. 

“Why do you owe Tanner money?” James asked, but Moneypenny barrelled on, ignoring the question.

“I wish he would have texted me. But I suppose you two were… reconnecting.” Her grin grew conspiratorial, and she lifted her eyebrows suggestively.

“What are you talking about?” That white hot plasma was starting to work its way between his eyes. Everyone around him kept speaking in riddles and he seemed the only one out on the joke.

“Where is he, by the way? You didn’t leave him home alone already, did you?”

“Moneypenny,” James said, keeping his voice carefully neutral, “what the bloody fuck are you talking about?”

The smile fell from Moneypenny’s lips, and her eyes flicked between him and Tanner, doubt blossoming across her face.

“You and Q, of course?” she said.

“Which is funny, because I was about to ask you where he is.” James rocked back onto his heels, trying to parse the scraps of information Moneypenny had shot at him lightning fast. Q was obviously not in London, he’d gone on holiday Tanner had said. From what Moneypenny was saying, she’d assumed they’d met. Not only met, reconnected, with all the weight of innuendo surrounding it. He fought against the hope blooming in his chest. Maybe it wasn’t too late, after all.

“Tried Q-branch. Seems that division has been shut down, though.”

“So… Q’s not...in London.” Moneypenny formed the words carefully, deliberately, as though she couldn’t quite believe she had to say them.

“If he is, we didn’t share a flight.”

“Oh my god, you -” Moneypenny leaned forward as if she were going to stand, her hands pressed into the blotter on her desk. 

“Tanner, the door. Please,” James said. Tanner hesitated in the doorway for a moment, unsure of which way to go before he finally stepped fully into the room and pulled the door closed behind him. James could see the shift from playful to outraged in Moneypenny’s eyes, and while a door wouldn’t stop the impending outburst from reaching other ears, it would at least keep it from echoing throughout the atrium.

“You came crawling back.” 

Moneypenny’s voice was quiet, restrained, which was, frankly, more intimidating. The sprout of hope that had just begun to take root yellowed and shriveled.

“Did she leave you on a park bench in the rain?” Moneypenny pushed herself up out of her chair. “Or did you just get  _ bored _ ?” The last word came out nearly as violent as a physical slap to the face that James only just managed not to flinch away from.

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? So you can just crawl right back into his bed like nothing happened?”

Well, that answered one question at any rate. Tanner edged back toward the door, hoping to make a hasty exit before this descended into bloodshed. James was pinned in place by her glower.

“You know, he was going to  _ apologize _ ,” Moneypenny said incredulously. “He’d convinced himself that it was all his fault. He’d almost convinced me! Him and that bloody note, like  _ you _ would have done  _ that _ !” She scoffed. “God, I thought you’d meant it.”

James frowned. Note? There had been a note? When?  _ I can’t. I’m sorry _ \- No, that was what he’d left for Madeleine, tucked under the vase of flowers on the dresser. What note would he have left for Q? And what could it have said to cause this?

“So he went. He  _ flew _ , James, all the way to Acapulco, high as a bloody kite, just to tell you that he was  _ sorry _ for starting that row. And now here you are, fresh off your latest conquest, waltzing back into his life like you’d never left.”

James stood rooted to the spot, the barrier between his memories beginning to crumble, brick by brick, until there was a tiny opening, just enough for him to peek through.

A kitchen, but not the kitchen in his flat. Q standing in a green dressing gown, unbelted, cuffs of faded grey pyjama bottoms pooling around his bare feet, gesticulating wildly with an empty mug, his face pinched and blotchy red.

_ “Why do I keep waking up only to find that you’ve gone?” _

  
  


“Bond?”

The voice came swimming up out of a black well James fought against drowning in. He tried opening his eyes only to find the world around him had gone bleary and far too bright. Above him, vague shapes of human swam before his eyes, pink and brown and black and white. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to shake off the nausea that was creeping into his already dizzying consciousness. He looked up and blinked, his eyes finally sliding into focus. Tanner hovered above him, looking relieved if not a bit wary.

“Tanner.” His tongue felt thick, but functional, and he ran his fingers over the surface beneath his hands. It was the leather chair in Moneypenny’s office, but Moneypenny had vanished. At least they hadn’t carted him off to medical.

“There you are. No, sit. Water?” Tanner stopped him from trying to get to his feet and pressed a plastic cup into James’ hand.

James accepted automatically and took a sip. It was cold and crisp and part of him wanted to dump the rest of it over his head. It might do more good that way. He took another sip, instead. The hurt in Q’s voice echoed in his head,  _ you’ve gone, you’ve gone, you’ve gone _ . He groaned and shifted in the chair, the leather creaking under him.

“You collapsed,” Tanner said unhelpfully, as if James hadn’t already worked that out. That would make the second time in three days. “What don’t we know?”

James sighed. There would be no getting around it at this point.

“More like ‘what don’t I know,’” James tried for cheek but instead got something a bit closer to anguish.

“Alright, what don’t you know, then.”

James held up a hand. What Six - or whatever the hell they were called now - knew about what had happened in the Algerian desert dictated how he told the story.

“Has Blofeld been interrogated?”

“For what it was worth, though excuse me if I don’t quite follow. Why?” Tanner said flatly.

James allowed a wry grin. “Then what I’m going to tell you never leaves this room. Agreed?” He’d be damned if Franz got the satisfaction of knowing his sadistic little machine had actually  _ worked _ , if not in the precise manner he’d expected.

“Bond, I -”

“Are you agreed or not, because I really don’t have the patience for negotiations right now.”

Tanner huffed, but nodded. “Yes. Yes of course.”

James scrutinized Tanner’s eyes. The man had blatant tells, which is why he was behind a desk to begin with, and he was exhibiting exactly none of them. Satisfied that he wasn’t actively trying to deceive him, James nodded.

“Right.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. For him, there was no true beginning to this story, not one that presented itself clearly anyways. Not to mention the ending was still settling in the black out of dust and rubble from his own self destruction. He began the only place he could.

“Algeria,” he said at last, and Tanner nodded. “Franz - Blofeld - whatever he calls himself- he had this...device. I didn’t say anything because I honestly thought it hadn’t worked. But now…” Miles away, months apart, the buzzing of a drill still set his teeth on edge sounding from just behind his ear.

Tanner hoisted himself up to sit on the edge of Moneypenny’s desk, concern written all over his face, but he remained silent, waiting for James to continue.

“The results, apparently,” he took a deep breath. “Are some kind of memory loss. And blackouts, though those are new.” James leaned forward in his chair, watching his glass dangle from his fingertips so he wouldn’t have to look Tanner in the eye for what had to come next. He turned the cup in his fingers, the water drops clinging to the sides reflecting the overhead fluorescent lights. Laying out potential weaknesses was dangerous at best, and just admitting this much set his skin buzzing. But this was Tanner, and something about the way Tanner was looking at him, all earnestness and concern, set at least a small part of his mind at ease. “I think the blackouts are the memories coming back.” 

Tanner shifted uncomfortably. “How much do you remember then?”

“I recognize faces, have enough context to make a few educated guesses -” Suddenly and without warning, Moneypenny’s face hovered above his in his mind’s eye, mere centimeters above him, and a thrill of something that he didn’t want to admit to being panic swept through him. In a conspiratorial whisper he asked, “Have I slept with Moneypenny?” 

Tanner choked on a laugh, his face turning an alarming shade of crimson trying to hold it in. A few muffled chuckles escaped before he composed himself and cleared his throat. 

“No,” he said finally, the tension leaving his shoulders. “No, you haven’t. But it’s not for lack of trying.”

“What’s so funny?” Speak of the devil. Moneypenny stood in the doorway to her office, a man James assumed was a medic based on his clothing, behind her. 

“Nothing,” James and Tanner said in unison. Moneypenny rolled her eyes.

“Glad to see you’re having all the fun at what I assume is my expense.”

The medic made his way around Moneypenny and crouched next to James’ chair and began taking his pulse. His tag read ‘Stephens’ and he had the crisp and efficient manner of a man accustomed to emergencies. He pulled James’ eyelids apart and shone a penlight into them, nodding.

“Today’s date?” he asked, all business.

“24 February.”

“Year?”

“For fuck’s sake.” James rolled his eyes, Stephens waited impassively. James sighed. “2016.”

“Current Prime Minister.”

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” James growled, levelling a glare at Stephens that would cow most men. Stephens simply raised an eyebrow.

“Jesus christ.  _ Cameron _ .”

“Excellent.” Stephens stood and turned to Moneypenny. “He’s fine, but do try and talk him into a full exam.” He turned back to James, “And I’d hold off on driving until you do.”

James plastered on a smile, the one that he saved for those special few who irked him in a way that made him want to ignore orders and do something spectacularly reckless.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He wouldn’t.

Stephens shook his head, then let himself out of the office to return to Medical.

“So, that wasn’t from jet-lag,” Moneypenny said, hand on hip, as soon as Stephens had shut the door behind him. Moneypenny was never the type to ask questions she didn’t already know the answer to.

“No,” James said.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not really.”

“So help me, I  _ will _ send you to Medical and order them to detain you for observation. For at least 48 hours, if not longer.”

James shot Tanner a look that said, ‘are you going to let her do this to me?’ Tanner merely shrugged and gestured for James to deal with it himself. James scowled, and Tanner shrugged again. Moneypenny only grinned. 

“If you two are quite finished.” She looked at James expectantly.

James resigned himself to biting out his explanation again, and Moneypenny’s eyes grew wide.

“So what you’re telling me is that you don’t remember that Q was your boyfriend.”

James blinked, the word settling uncomfortably in his head, but he didn’t know what to replace it with. He stared at the pattern on the carpet between his heels, the corporate mottled grey that was still stiff beneath his shoes. He’d thought it was something more, it had  _ felt _ like something more, but hearing Moneypenny announce it, in that way she had of making revelatory information sound commonplace, landed like a blow to his sternum that shook him to his core. His shoulders pulled inward, constricting around the nonexistent point of contact. 

“Is that what it was?” There it was again. That small sliver of moonlight breaking through the clouds, trying to shine in a world full of darkness. His head hurt and his chest and his limbs. Everything ached with doubt and loss, but still it was there, creeping in. Hope.

Moneypenny sighed.

“Q never told me what it was. Not really.” She paused. “But I can tell you this: that man loves you, even still, for whatever godforsaken reason, and I swear, if you’ve come crawling back, thinking only of his bed, if you so much as dare think of leaving him behind again, you had better run James. Run far, and run fast, and you had better never look behind you again. Because I will be there and I will not hesitate to finish what I started.”

The quiet intensity behind the words was slow and rolling, not the bright muzzle-flash of pique but the embers of a promise, and James knew that she would follow through. He sat with her words for a long moment, testing their veracity, letting the assertion settle over him like dust, like ash from a fire he’d thought might have gone out, only to find the coals still glowing. 

Q’d flown halfway around the world to find him, to apologize of all things. To, apparently, try to repair whatever it was they’d shared. More than a couple shags and a holiday. More than he’d shared with anyone since… He forced himself to pull the name from his memory. He’d spent a lifetime fleeing from it. Vesper. Ten long, bloody years and still he could barely conjure her name without the tightening in the back of his neck. Why that had remained clear as crystal in his memory when everything else had been unceremoniously shoved out made no sense. Why couldn’t Franz have taken that instead?

_ Because whatever it was you had had with Q wasn’t built on a bloody lie. He wasn’t rigged to blow up in your face. You did that all perfectly well on your own. _

If Q was searching for him, perhaps his appearance would be more welcome than he’d dared to hope for. Not that he had any delusions of a heartwarming reunion.  _ Just… just let me try. Again. _

He met Moneypenny’s eyes for the first time since this conversation began, and nodded.

She whistled, low, impressed.

“Right,” she said, and pulled out her phone. “Let’s see what Q has to say about this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/kudos/feedback of all kinds is very much appreciated!


	3. I Will Find You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The waiting game had never been one James was any good at playing.

Q didn’t respond.

Not that afternoon, not the next morning. Not the day after. Not even after both Moneypenny and Tanner sent him messages that requested his immediate response or his passport would be revoked. Nothing. 

“Not sure revoking his passport is much of a threat,” Tanner grumbled. “He’d just reinstate it with a… a calculator and some chewing gum.”

Moneypenny raised an eyebrow at that, but she had to admit Tanner had a point. It had been four days since she’d received the last text, one that merely alerted her to the fact that he’d reached his destination with no major problems. It might have been understandable if James wasn’t sitting in her office staring at her phone. (Again. There had to be something else he could be doing.) 

Q should have at  _ least _ told her to fuck off by now if he didn’t want to be bothered. The total radio silence was unlike him, and it wasn’t sitting well. She glanced at James across her desk. He sat in the chair like he owned it, oozing confidence and nonchalance, but every time Moneypenny’s phone so much as twitched, he went on the alert. It was barely perceptible, just a slight tightening of the muscle in his jaw, a twitch in the fingers casually curled around the ends of the arm rests.

Should she have noticed there was something wrong all those months ago? Could she have? Would it have made a difference? The questions swirled in her head, but there were no answers. They had to carry on with what had been dealt. Which was a Q not answering his phone, and a former Double-Oh with amnesia. Christ. She rubbed at her temple.

Her phone buzzed with an incoming text, and all three of them jumped, but it was only Mallory requesting she set up a meeting with the new Security Committee for next week. He wasn’t too happy about James hanging around her office, but James had been behaving himself for once so there wasn’t much Mallory could do.

“Mallory,” she announced, and tapped out a reply. She could feel the tension in the room tighten another notch. Every hour that went by without word from Q crawled into the back of her neck, the corners of her eyes. She could see it wear on Tanner, too. James began tapping out a rhythm on the armrest of the chair and grumbled something under his breath which sounded suspiciously like ‘this is bullshit,’ with which she was inclined to agree.

What was a man like him doing in a city like Acapulco? It was all tourist traps and insulated resorts. It seemed very dull for a man of his...caliber. The beginnings of a thought tickled at the back of her mind, and her stomach sank. She had to know for sure, now.

“James,” she began, “out of all the places in the world, why Acapulco? Doesn’t seem like your kind of town.”

He shifted in his seat, leaning heavily on his left arm, and didn’t meet her eyes. That did not soothe the niggling in the back of her mind. Not at all.

“I heard the golf is excellent.”

Oh, that rotten - No. He did not get to wriggle out of this one. Not today.

“Try again.”

There was a long moment of silence, broken at last by a heavy sigh. 

“I thought…” he shook his head, began again. “I’d been digging up intel for weeks before I left for Mexico. Acapulco came up.” He tugged at his cuff.

“You thought that if you got bored playing house, you’d - what? Go bust up a crime syndicate?”

James’ eyes hardened for a moment, then he shrugged. “If you want to be picturesque about it.”

“Did you?”

“No.” His voice was flat, stern, and sincere, and just ever so slightly disappointed. Moneypenny believed him.

“Were they connected to Sciarra?” Tanner interjected, concern in his voice. 

“Loosely. I don’t think there was ever any direct contact between them and Spectre, if that’s what you mean.” 

“Shit,” Moneypenny swore.

This was not good. Q travelling anywhere was a risk, but the last thing she’d expected was for him to walk straight into a town run by a syndicate even  _ remotely _ connected to Spectre. The knot in her gut tightened. She should have thought to check, should have made sure, especially after his declassification.  

Q had effectively dropped off the face of the earth. Not only that, James Bloody Bond had decided to settle at the tip of one of Spectre’s tentacles, and had, however unwittingly, drawn Q into their net. She forced the panic down. It wasn’t helpful.  _ Stay calm _ , she told herself, over and over.  _ Stay calm, it could all be for nothing.  _ It wasn’t James’ fault, anyway. Not really. He couldn’t have known.

Tanner pulled out his phone, thumbs a blur over the screen.

James sat forward in his chair, now, eyes fierce and calculating. God knew what was running through his head, but if the tension in his eyes ran any higher, he was liable to snap completely. Things tended to explode when that happened, and becoming a fire brigade was not on Moneypenny’s list of priorities. Better to keep it contained in the first place.

“Last known location,” Moneypenny barked.

“Here,” Tanner replied, and a map of Acapulco flickered to life on the wall of Moneypenny’s office, complete with a yellow dot on the map at the last triangulated location.

“That’s only a few streets away from where I was staying,” James supplied.

“What day was that?”

“Tuesday, last ping at -” Tanner consulted his phone “10:07, local time.”

“And after that?”

“Phone stopped pinging.”

Moneypenny’s throat went dry. Q’s phone was second only to his laptop as far as ‘things he never had more than three inches away from him at all times’ went. He wouldn’t just let it die. He wouldn’t give it up without a struggle.  _ What the hell had happened? _

 

_ ******** _

  
  
  
  
  


It was somewhere between waking up and coming to when James opened his eyes. He’d passed out in the chair again, unable to bring himself to sleep in that empty bed, filled only with crumbling memories. He pulled his head upright and hissed as the muscles in his neck protested the movement. He rubbed them absently for a few moments, then hauled himself into standing and shuffled blearily into the shower.

Five days. Five goddamn days, and James had almost torn himself to pieces with the waiting. He’d nearly worn through the floorboards in front of the fireplace with pacing, trying to run off the buzzing under his skin, the fog in his mind. Every third pass or so he picked up the photograph of Q, thinking that maybe if he stared at it long enough, if he were drunk enough or exhausted enough, he would remember. But it didn’t work.

The scent of Earl Grey still wafted through the kitchen and rosemary seemed to inhabit the steam in the shower. A single dark hair caught in the caulk at the edge of the sink had unearthed a memory of Q standing in his bathroom, naked save for a towel wrapped around his waist, running a comb through hair still damp from the shower. Q had been laughing at something James wished he could remember. He blinked awake under said sink, a bruise forming on his shoulder.

James was tired of ghosts. He was tired of everything in his life crumbling to dust around him, Q being the latest in a long string of failure. 

He took a cold shower, thought about shaving, said ‘fuck it,’ and drove back to CNS to sit in Moneypenny’s office because at least there he felt like he was  _ involved _ . 

Except he wasn’t, not really. He sat, or stood, or paced. Most often paced, occasionally offering a small tidbit of context for a location they’d unearthed as a potential objective. It was all taking too bloody  _ long _ . 

James leaned against the frame of the plate glass window in Moneypenny’s office, watching the Thames roll by in soft, lapping currents. People scurried by below, and James found himself searching for a certain mop of unruly dark hair. It was an exercise in futility, but maybe, just maybe, Q had turned off his phone. Maybe he was trying to gain a little perspective, have some space. Maybe he was on the tube, and he’d blow in five minutes from now, chastising them for being absolutely bloody useless. 

James certainly  _ felt _ bloody useless. Q would have had their objectives completed three days ago, all wrapped up with a clever little bow. Except Q wasn’t here, could be  _ dead _ for all they knew.

Still, they pulled up map after map, flight manifests, shipping schedules, records for car hires. It generated an obscene amount of paper, and James couldn’t help but notice that neither Moneypenny nor Tanner had used anything other than their personal phones for any of it.

Just before lunch, Mallory poked his head into the office, much as he had on half-a-dozen occasions in the past few days. Tanner and Moneypenny exchanged a knowing look with him, and he glanced at James with something bordering on pity, and James’ hands balled into fists at his side. He’d be sidelined for this. He’d be put on some list and stopped from leaving the country. 

Mallory nodded, then retreated wordlessly. Ten minutes later, Moneypenny stretched luxuriously, groaning as she tilted her head to one side, then the other.

“These walls are starting to stare back at me. There’s a nice little place over by the Gardens. James?”

This was new. Usually James ordered takeaway as Tanner and Moneypenny poured over some document, like he was a bloody intern. He narrowed his eyes, but smirked.

“My treat,” he offered, tugging instinctively at his cuff.

“I’ll even let you,” Moneypenny replied, scooping up a slender manilla folder and exiting the office as James held the door.

“Tanner?” James asked. They’d been a trio for nearly a week, it seemed odd that he wasn’t joining them.

“Working lunch for me today,” Tanner said, shrugging. “I’ll order in takeaway from that Thai place.”

James shrugged good-naturedly and followed Moneypenny out the door.

The place Moneypenny took them was a hole-in-the-wall cafe on Sancroft. It seemed familiar, a particularly vicious bout of deja vu that sent his eyes skittering over the awful oil paintings hung on walls papered in yellow and green florals. He didn’t need to be told that this, too, was connected to Q. 

As he sipped burnt coffee and ignored the crumbling tragedy of a scone in front of him, James felt the weight of this reality settle on his shoulders. Q was supposed to be in London, safely tucked away in a basement somewhere, tinkering away at his pet projects and ordering around lesser geniuses. James had been spending too much of his time looking every which way but in the direction of the truth. Q was missing and possibly in danger, if not dead, and all because, well, among other things it was because James couldn’t have known what he’d left behind on that bridge.  __

He took another sip of his coffee, and this time it tasted of blood and ash and regret. He grimaced.

“It’s not your fault,” Moneypenny said. “And you’re being sent on recovery. Unofficially, of course.” 

“Oh, really? And here I thought I was going to get a lecture to stay out of it.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his tone.

Moneypenny sighed. 

“Going through official channels on this would mean more leverage for the Security Committee to curtail our powers. Losing the head of cyber security isn’t exactly something you want broadcast. Besides, I didn’t think you’d want us to send Phillips out on this one. It requires a… personal touch, don’t you think?”

She slid a folder across the green formica table. 

“And Mallory is just going to let you send me back into the field?” he cocked an eyebrow from over the rim of his coffee cup.

“Not exactly what I would call it, but for all intents and purposes, yes.”

“Thank you.” And he meant it.

James flipped the folder open, and clipped to the top inside corner was a small black-and-white photograph of Q. It was obviously a security photo; there was little background and the sheer amount of boredom in Q’s eyes spoke to an interminable wait beforehand. The papers inside listed what they’d already confirmed: security footage that showed Q had boarded the flight both to Atlanta and the connection to Acapulco. The triangulation on his phone, the few texts he and Moneypenny had exchanged since he’d left. Nothing new there. 

An image of Q huddled in the corner of a squalid room, chained and bloody, plastered itself behind his eyes, and the ball of nausea in the pit of his stomach rolled precariously up his throat. Thinking of that was not going to help. 

He could go back to Acapulco, guns blazing, and tear that syndicate limb from limb until they told him what he wanted to know, but that would send the dominoes tumbling in all directions and put Q in line to take the hit from the fall, which was the opposite of what he wanted to achieve.

“If they wanted to get to me, why not just take Madeleine again?” James mumbled as he scoured the security footage stills (again) for something, anything, that would spark an idea.

“Did you ever think that maybe, just possibly, it’s not about you?” Moneypenny returned. She turned her phone over between finger and thumb, the rhythmic  _ click-clack _ of the edges hitting the table suddenly irritating in the extreme. “I mean, maybe you just made their job that much easier. Maybe they were after him anyway. He  _ is _ the man that disassembled Nine Eyes singlehandedly.”

“If that’s the case, they were a lot closer to the center than I thought.” Had he missed everything? Was he even capable of this anymore? The questions were pointless, but insistent. He’d bring Q home, or die trying. And that was that.

“Or were brought into the fold. You know, because of their proximity to a former agent responsible for toppling a vast criminal empire,” Moneypenny murmured.

“See?” James said with a wicked smirk, “It is about me, after all.” 

Moneypenny snorted and rolled her eyes.

The last page in the folder was Q’s CV. Unredacted. James frowned. There, at the top, was a name. One he didn’t recognize, one that sparked no shock of recognition. Had he not known? Should he have known? Regardless, what he was seeing was certainly above his pay grade. His own CV had thick black lines through it, why the hell was Q’s clean?

“This is above my clearance,” he said.

“Not anymore.”

“Because?”

“Because it’s been declassified.”

James snorted incredulously. “Who thought that was a good idea?”

Moneypenny shrugged. “I got the order from M.” 

She picked up her mug and sipped her tea, eyes studiously not meeting his. 

“And where’d he get it from, I wonder,” James muttered darkly.

“I don’t know,” Moneypenny’s voice was suddenly quiet, contemplative. “It came down during a kerfuffle over transparency. After the Nine Eyes scandal, the MPs gained a lot of oversight. You missed the worst of it. Protests in the streets, angry speeches, the whole bit.”

“Christ, this is worse than I thought.” 

“The whole thing is a mess, but if we want to maintain even a modicum of effective prevention, we have to play by their rules.”

“You sound like Mallory.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“He allowed the entire programme to be dismantled, including Q-branch. Am I supposed to sing his praises?”

Moneypenny sighed.

“He did what needed done, James. It’s… It’s not like the old days.”

“No, it’s not. Bloody politicians poking their noses into-,” James spat, then shook his head. Anger over this was not going to help him. “Forget it. What’s done is done. Our priority now is to find Q.” 

“I’m not going to argue there.”

He doubted the boffin was still in Acapulco. They’d had almost a week to move him.  _ Or kill him _ , the familiar voice in the back of his head supplied helpfully, and James fought the image of a mangled, broken body flung down an embankment, coming to rest at the bottom of a dry riverbed in a cloud of dust.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that Q tested that damn Smart Blood on himself?” 

“Even if he did, the trackers would have decayed by now, and I don’t have access to the system.”

“Lovely.” James flashed her a tight-lipped smile as he stood. Few leads, (and those he did have could put Q in more danger), politicians running the Intelligence Service, and a memory that felt more like a sieve than a steel trap. His one consolation lay in the fact that Blofeld was still caged, for now. Some bleeding heart or greased palm would get that overturned, the way things were going. He gathered the folder under his arm. “I’ll be in touch.”

“James,” Moneypenny said, and he looked down into a face that no longer disguised her fear. “Bring him home..”

James nodded and walked out of the cafe.

The sun was shining incongruously as he made his way back toward Vauxhall Bridge and the CNS building, where his Aston was still parked illegally in front.  There should be clouds, he thought, or rain, but the sun continued to shine down on him with indifference.

Q had been near the house he’d shared with Madeleine when his phone had stopped pinging. But it wasn’t like he could just call her up asking after lost weapons engineers and muttering through half hearted apologies at what, her inconvenience? It made for good sitcom material, but wasn’t likely to get him the answers he needed.

There was someone, though, that might still have his ear to the ground in Mexico. He pulled out his phone and dialled Felix Leiter’s number. He answered on the third ring.

“Felix,” James said, wishing he had a reference for body language and facial expression. Perhaps he’d burned this bridge, too.

“I’ll be damned! To what do I owe the pleasure, James?” Felix’s voice sounded genuinely pleased to hear from him, which was rather a nice change.

“I need a favor.”

“You never call otherwise. But if it’s tickets to that Beyonce concert, I can’t help you there.”

“What?”

There was silence on the other end of the line for several long beats.

“What’s wrong?” Felix’s voice was low, intense, as though he thought James in immediate, life-threatening danger. Which was not a great leap of imagination, if he were honest.

“No, I’m fine. Listen-”

“The cards,” Felix said, and James’ stomach clenched. This had to be an identity test. Apparently that Beyonce concert wasn’t just a Beyonce concert, it was some kind of code, and James had missed it. Christ, couldn’t anything be easy?

“The cards,” James repeated, hoping he wasn’t severing this thread as he did so. 

“My last hand.”

The light popped on in James’ memory, and the connection was made: Felix’s last played hand at the casino where they’d met. And he knew the answer. At least something was going his way.

“Two pair, eights and fives. Queen high.”

“You had me worried there for a minute.”

“Only a minute? I’ll have to try harder next time.”

James cut through the Pleasure Gardens and took a seat on a bench beneath the trees. The park was full of people enjoying the unexpected sunshine, laughing, throwing sticks for their dogs, walking hand-in-hand through the open field. They moved around him in a rhythmless dance, drawing near, then shifting away again. It had never bothered him much before, but he was suddenly, excruciatingly, aware of his isolation. 

“I don’t envy your handler.” Felix chuckled, snapping James out of his bizarre reverie. “What’s up?”

“What do you know about Los Dionisios?”

“Enough. Why?” 

“Call it a personal interest.”

“How personal?”

“Let’s just say I don’t have a handler for this one. What can you tell me?”

“Big shake-up in the leadership past couple months,” Felix began, then there was a loud crash in the background followed by a terse, “hang on” followed by the sound of running, then muffled shouting.

“Sorry,” Felix said after the shouting had subsided. “Kiddo decided soccer in the living room was a good idea. That lamp will never be the same. Where was I?”

“Shake-up in the leadership.”

“Right. So, apparently El Encendido vanished overnight around the beginning of January, but he wasn’t replaced by his second. They brought in some mid-level guy from Los Zetas instead. Calls himself El Cuchillo. No major infighting when it happened. Everything just seemed to go on like it had before, which is why I remember. We were all braced for a turf war in one of the most exclusive resort towns in Mexico. Not good news for the tourist trade, you know?”

James’ stomach sank. He and Madeleine had arrived in Acapulco around the same time, and the change in leadership had happened right under his bloody nose and without his realizing it. Not only that, it lent credence Moneypenny’s theory that Los Dionisios, a relatively small-time syndicate, had been usurped by a larger one, and one that James knew had closer ties to Sciarra’s former empire and thus, Spectre. 

James requested known names and last sightings, Felix said he’d send them along when he got back to the office in the morning. James thanked him, and hung up. More waiting. But this kind of waiting was different, less of a holding pattern and more like a chambered round, poised potential. His mind attuned to it, like an engine coming to life that had sat unused too long. It took a bit of time to grease the pistons, but she ran as good as ever once she got going.

He texted Moneypenny and negotiated for a morning flight to Mexico, paid out of Mallory’s expense account, and company plastic. He got the flight, but not the card. Oh well, it was worth a shot. 

Q was likely still in Mexico. Almost certainly Nuevo Laredo, stronghold of Los Zetas, the lynchpin in Sciarra’s Mexican interests. He hoped he wasn't too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of feel like we should apologize for yet another fic ending on this note. On the other hand, it seems a natural place to end this arc? There's more to come, though, we're not just going to leave it here!
> 
>  
> 
> Also, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who comments, leaves kudos, and bookmarks the fics and the series, you guys are awesome and every last one is appreciated and cherished.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, [jordankaine](http://www.tumblr.com/jordankaine) has been invaluable in the birthing of this fic. Her editing and additions made this what it is. Thank you.  
> Also, thank you to [opalescentgold](http://www.tumblr.com/opalescentgold) and [castillon02](http://www.tumblr.com/castillon02) for cheering me on and offering insight!
> 
> My tumblr for this fandom (and a couple others) is [here](http://www.tumblr.com/timetospy).


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